_________________I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

Do I assume you would do it quicker with the racing wheels? If so by how much do you estimate?

I don't think Eric Heiden can do it in 14:10 now.

_________________I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

Well, my time from 29 years ago would have put me in 5th place on Strava ... on the women's leaderboard. And I absolutely did not dope, nor use Gruber Assist, etc. I think my time would have been under 19 minutes had I been riding (what is now) modern equipment.

I used to ride sometimes with Eric, but only when he was riding socially. Once he started really riding, I was history. He lived near the top of Old La Honda back then.

_________________I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

Well, my time from 29 years ago would have put me in 5th place on Strava ... on the women's leaderboard. And I absolutely did not dope, nor use Gruber Assist, etc. I think my time would have been under 19 minutes had I been riding (what is now) modern equipment.

I used to ride sometimes with Eric, but only when he was riding socially. Once he started really riding, I was history. He lived near the top of Old La Honda back then.

Really HammerTime? If you had modern equipment back then your time would be under 19 minutes?How did you determine that?

_________________I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

Do I assume you would do it quicker with the racing wheels? If so by how much do you estimate?

Dropping a pound is worth about 6 seconds on OLH. So, a good 20 seconds. Would put me at the higher end of 18 minutes. (Lighter wheels, cassette, skewers, no saddle bag, no cellphone, earlier in the day).

It would be interesting to find out if that is the case.Also did you just do the OLH or was it part of a ride where you did some miles before hand.

I would probably do OLH with the same equipment several times in the month.

Of course your time should improve over time with the same equipment.

Do the same with a different set of equipment then compare.

Eventually you will take fitness out of the equation and solely base it on the equipment.

You must be asking the question, why are you asking me do do this? Why don't you do this yourself?

I'm just throwing it out there. You do not have to do it.

I'm just wondering if you come to the conclusion that fitness trumps equipment and the time difference is very small when comparing similar equipment but keeping the fitness level the same.

_________________I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

Well, my time from 29 years ago would have put me in 5th place on Strava ... on the women's leaderboard. And I absolutely did not dope, nor use Gruber Assist, etc. I think my time would have been under 19 minutes had I been riding (what is now) modern equipment.

I used to ride sometimes with Eric, but only when he was riding socially. Once he started really riding, I was history. He lived near the top of Old La Honda back then.

Really HammerTime? If you had modern equipment back then your time would be under 19 minutes?How did you determine that?

About 7 pounds in weight savings (even more if I rode a harder core WW bike), which I think would have been about/almost enough on its own, plus additional time savings from "better" frame* (estimate based on riding same climbs at similar fitness levels on different bikes). I think I would have been under 19 minutes, but don't know it for a fact. I wish I could return to my fitness and body of that time and give it a try. My body has deteriorated a lot more than bikes have gotten faster over those years.

* I have empirical evidence, as pertains to me and my riding style, that I climb faster with a frame bottom bracket which doesn't flex a lot vs. one which does - it was true 29 years ago, it's true today. Even if energy from the flexing is not lost, flexing makes me slower (on climbs of the steepness of Old La Honda).

Eric Wohlberg is in the 13:50 range. Greg Drake also did just under 14. Strava KOM is Ryan Sherlock, multi-time Irish national hillclimb champion. His wife, Melanie Spath, was just signed by Tibco. I believe Linda Jackson has the women's record, but don't recall the time. These oral tradition records aren't so great.

I asked Andy Hampsten how Eric Heiden, a non-climber, could be so fast up this climb. He said it was because the climb was so short, Eric could use his amazing aerobic capacity to get a high average power. That makes sense, of course. Neither Eric used a helmet, saving some mass, but Heiden was on a bike of his day (steep or MAYBE Al) while Wohlberg was likely on carbon.

Profile:

Obviously nothing exciting in these data. The climb is gorgeous, though, and its accessibility to major population makes it extremely popular. The relative uniformity of the grade makes is compatible with riding just a single gear the whole way. My second best time was just in a 36/18. I did a bit better 1.5 years later shifting as needed.

All you need is to determine your fraction of power going into wind resistance. This isn't too hard, using either an estimate of CdA or an estimate of your maximum speed on a -0.5% grade (which cancels rolling resistance, approximately). If you know the latter, and your speed on a climb, the fraction of speed wind resistance on the climb is approximately the speed ratio to the third power.

Then each 1% savings in total mass results in a speed savings in speed equal to 1% multiplied by:

(1 - f) / (1 + 2 f)

So for example: suppose I can go up OLH in 16.5 minutes = 19.3 kph. Suppose I could ride at the same power down a -0.5% grade in the same aero position at 40 kph. Then f = (19.3 / 40)³ = 9.0%. So in this case each 1% change in mass would improve speed by 0.77%. If I weigh 57 kg and my bike + clothing = 8 kg then the total is 65 kg so saving 100 grams would save me 1.2 seconds.

well, since everyone treat this like a TT.. do you guys go through the turns apexing the a racing line. or just outside of the turn, etc.I don't ride this enough to have it memorized.. any other trick to shave a few seconds?

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